Taunton talks trash

Charles Winokoor, Business Writer

Friday

May 4, 2007 at 12:01 AMMay 4, 2007 at 4:04 AM

TAUNTON — Tauntonians don’t mince words when it comes to those official-looking, city-mandated, orange trash bags. “They suck,” said Monica Mello. “They fall apart.” Mello, a Taunton resident who works downtown in the loan service department of Bristol County Savings Bank, is one of a number of people who say they’re dissatisfied with the 33-gallon-capacity, City of Taunton plastic bags — for which they each pay a buck apiece. If it’s not the belly of a bag splitting open from the pressure of the contents, she said, it’s plastic handles that sometimes give out. When that happens it’s no longer possible to tie off and secure the top.

Tauntonians don’t mince words when it comes to those official-looking, city-mandated, orange trash bags.“They suck,” said Monica Mello. “They fall apart.”Mello, a Taunton resident who works downtown in the loan service department of Bristol County Savings Bank, is one of a number of people who say they’re dissatisfied with the 33-gallon-capacity, City of Taunton plastic bags — for which they each pay a buck apiece.If it’s not the belly of a bag splitting open from the pressure of the contents, she said, it’s plastic handles that sometimes give out. When that happens it’s no longer possible to tie off and secure the top.Mello also said it’s hit or miss, in terms of overall quality, every time she shells out $5 for a five-bag supply.“It depends on the batch,” she said.It’s gotten to the point lately, she said, that she’s resorted to double-bagging, just to make certain her refuse makes it off the sidewalk and into a garbage truck.Marie Pelletier, another Taunton resident, echoed Mello’s sentiments.“They do suck,” Pelletier said, adding that, “The handle ties are too close together.” As for uniformity of quality, she said: “You might get a good batch or a bad batch.”Her husband, Alan, said he always takes great care in tying the bags once they’re filled. He also said the city should “get after the manufacturer” for its lack of consistent quality control.Gill Enos, assistant to Mayor Charles Crowley, begs to differ. He said his office has not been receiving calls from the public attesting to any inherent design flaws in the bags.Personally, he said, “I haven’t experienced that problem.”But Suzanne Washburn, operator/supervisor of the scale house at the entrance to the city’s landfill on East Britannia Street, says otherwise.Complaints in general about trash pickups have noticeably increased in the past six months, she said. Those include the level of service provided by Taunton’s collection vendor, Allied Waste of Fall River, a division of Phoenix-based Allied Waste Industries, Inc.Washburn said she’s gotten calls from residents complaining that when they leave large numbers of bags in front of their homes, only some of them end up being collected.She said some residents have told her that when they’ve called the Allied Waste office in Fall River to report the problem, they’ve received scant satisfaction.But by far the most frequent complaint she said she gets from city residents is the one regarding the questionable quality of the orange bags. “They feel it’s a real rip-off,” Washburn said.There is, however, a simple explanation — or explanations, as it turns out — to explain the unevenness of quality. For one thing, said Kristen Brown, the advertised dimensions of Taunton’s garbage bags are not consistent with their actual size.Brown, vice president of sales for Phoenix Recycling Inc. — the South Carolina company that manufactures the orange bags — said the true capacity size of the bags is 40 gallons, not 33 gallons as printed.She said her company altered the original dimensions less than half a year after Taunton’s orange-bag program was initiated in August of 2003. They did so, she said, to accommodate Taunton officials who had informed her office that a city ordinance required bags large enough to be fitted over the lip of a 30 gallon garbage can.Brown said that is likely why a good number of them have been splitting. Whereas a 1.5-millimeter-thick, 30- or 33-gallon bag can easily handle a full load of garbage, she said an additional five to 10 gallons-worth of refuse jammed into the same bag can lead to a structural failure — tears and rips, in other words.Of the 260 cities and towns in the United States Phoenix Recycling supplies, she said just eight or nine use bags with a 40-gallon capacity.But there’s another reason the bags are splitting apart, said Jeffrey Marcotte, president of Boxes and Bags Unlimited — the Lewiston, Maine-based distributor that ships Taunton its bags by way of Connecticut.Marcotte said his company functions, in effect, as broker for Phoenix Recycling in its contract agreement with Taunton. The Silver City’s pay-as-you-throw (also known as PAYT) garbage bag program — as per Department of Environmental Protection guidelines, he said — requires approximately 30 percent of the bags consist of what he calls “post-consumer resin.”Post-consumer resin, he explained, comes from plastic scrap that has been reprocessed and re-melted. In the case of Phoenix Recycling, he said, they use old Wal-Mart and grocery store bags, many of which are collected and donated by students participating in school programs — run by the company in partnership with local retailers.The unavoidable result, he said, are orange garbage bags that are “very inconsistent.” “You can tell by the color of the bags, if the shade is off,” Marcotte said.For example, he said, Wal-Mart’s blue plastic bags will make the final product darker in appearance, while other companies’ bags have an opposite effect.Calls to Taunton’s Department of Public Works this week for official comment were not returned as of Thursday.Kristen Brown said if Phoenix Recycling were to receive a request from Taunton to change the dimensions, or increase the thickness, of their bags they would gladly comply.But she also had high praise for the city and its ongoing PAYT recycling program, calling it one of the best in the state. Brown said her statistics show the Taunton average for residential disposal is 509 pounds per person, per year, compared to the U.S. average of 983 pounds.“It’s a great program,” she said. “You’re really ahead of a lot of the country.” cwinokoor@tauntongazette.com

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